THE CHAPLAINS' MEDAL

A commemorative medal is to be given by the Protestant churches which united in war work through the General War-Time Commission of the Churches to all their chaplains of the American army and navy who served in the war. The chaplains' medal is the work of Mrs. Laura Gardin Fraser, of New York, one of the best known of American medalists.

The task which was given to Mrs. Fraser was to produce a design which would express the spirit of the men who served as chaplains and represent both branches of the service.

In the design Mrs. Fraser has chosen to represent an army chaplain in the act of supreme service, ministering at the risk of his own life to a wounded man. To those familiar with experiences at the front, the danger of the situation will be at once apparent. In the center of the design the gas mask is seen, ready for immediate adjustment. Indeed, the suggestion is that the chaplain has, perhaps, momentarily removed it, the better to succor the wounded man. Each detail of the chaplains' equipment has been carefully scrutinized and pronounced correct by more than one who served at the front. Strength and sympathy are expressed in the finely modeled figure of the chaplain. The figure of the wounded man represents one of the men who served the big guns and were frequently stripped to the waist when in action. This choice of a subject appealed to the sculptor for its artistic possibilities. The very strength of the splendidly modeled back seems by contrast to emphasize the helplessness of the wounded gunner.

The fine record of the men who served as chaplains in the navy, many of them constantly passing back and forth through the submarine danger zone, ministering to the crews of the naval vessels and the soldiers on the transports, is recalled by the representation of the battleship on the reverse of the medal. The design of this side, with the cross as the central feature, is dignified and strong. If the thought occurs that not all the chaplains were privileged to serve as the chaplain represented on the obverse of the medal, the answer is that the design expresses the kind of service for which every man who entered the chaplaincy was ready and eager.

The medals are the gift of the churches which worked in closest fellowship during the war in carrying out their common tasks through the WarTime Commission. They are intended to convey in tangible form a message of grateful appreciation from the churches to their chaplain sons who were ready to give up life itself, if necessary, in the service of their fellows in the army and navy. The churches are proud indeed of the splendid record the chaplains made.

The medals are to be struck in bronze by the Gorham Company of New York.

This information and the photograph of the medal comes to us from the Federal Council.

MEDAL TO BE PRESENTED TO THE CHAPLAINS OF THE TWENTY-SEVEN PROTESTANT DENOMINATIONS WHICH COOPERATED THROUGH THE GENERAL WAR TIME COMMISSION OF THE CHURCHES.

Published Monthly by Funk & Wagnalls Company, 354-360 Fourth Avenue, New York.

(Adam W. Wagnalls, Pres.; Wilfred J. Funk, Vice-Pres.; Robert J. Cuddihy, Treas.; William Neiss), Serʼy.)

VOL. LXXX

JULY, 1920

No. 1

The Greatest Rivalries of Life

"AFTER experience had taught me that all things which are encountered in human life are vain and futile . . . I at length determined to inquire if there was anything which was a true good." Those are the words of a great philosopher who says that he found himself "led by the hand up to the highest blessedness."

Not everybody finds the choice of ends so easy as Spinoza did; not all of us are carried along into sustained and unmistakable blessedness. Life is full of rivalries which tend to divide our interests and to dissipate our attention. We wake up perhaps with surprize to discover that we are being carried, by the hand or by the hair, straight away from "the highest blessedness." Not seldom the sternest tragedies of human life are occasioned by success. Failure overtaking one in his aim will often shake him awake and make him see that he was pursuing an end in sharp rivalry with his highest good. But success often dulls the vision for other issues and gives one the specious confidence that he is on the right track and "all's well.”

Christ has a vivid parable which touches upon the rivalries of life. It is the story of a great feast to which many guests are invited. When the critical moment for the dinner comes the other rivalries begin to operate. One man, attracted by his possessions, "begs off," to use the graphic phrase of the original. Another, occupied with the complex interests of business and busy with the affairs of trade, prays to be excused. A third is immersed in the joys and responsibilities of married life and he abruptly dispatches his "regrets." It was not that they were unconcerned about the sumptuous feast, but that they were carried along by rival interests.

The feast in this parable plainly stands for the "true good," the "highest blessedness" of life. It symbolizes the goal and crown of life, the full realization of our best human possibilities, the attainment of that for which we were made aspiring beings. The invitation is a mark of amazing grace and the recipient of it has the clearest evidence that the feast would satisfy him. But there are the other things with their rival attractions! Possessions and business and domestic life pull us in a contrary direction. We send our cards of regret and beg off from the great feast.

The real mistake lies in treating these things as rivals. If we only knew it, an affirmative response to the great invitation of life would prepare us for all the other things and would heighten the

value of all we own, of all we do, and of all we love. Salvation is not some remote and ghostly thing that has to do with another world. It is the infusion of new life and power into all the concerns and affairs of this present world where we are. It means, as Christ said, receiving "a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life."

Nothing could be a more mistaken way than to regard human love as a rival to the highest of all relations, the love of the soul for God. One of the medieval saints said: "God brooks no rival"; but that phrase shows that the saint was caught napping, and in any case did not quite understand what love is. The way up to the highest love is not to be found by turning away from those experiences which give us training and preparation for the highest, but rather it is found in and through the experience of loving some person who, however imperfectly, is a revelation of the beauty and divineness of love. Not by some sheer leap from the earth does the soul arrive at its height of blessedness, but by steps and stages, by processess which bring illumination and richness of life. The man who has married a wife will do well to say when he answers the great invitation: "I have just married a wife and therefore I am peculiarly glad to come to thy feast, since fellowship with thee will make my love more real and true as that in turn will enable me to rise to a more genuine appreciation of thy love."

The same is true of houses and lands, of business and trade. There is no necessary rivalry here. Religion does not rob us of earthly interests, it does not strip us of the good things of this world. It only corrects our perspective and enables us to see the true scale of values. The trivial and fragmentary things of the world no longer absorb us. We refuse now to allow them to own us and drive us, or drag us. We see things steadily and we see them whole. We discover through our higher contacts and inspirations how to flood light back upon our occupations and upon the things we own, and how to make these subordinate things minister to the higher functions and attitudes of life. We get not some other world but this world here and now transmuted and raised a little nearer to the ideal and perfect world of our hopes and dreams. We get it back item for item increased a hundredfold, raised to a higher spiritual level. The wise owner of property and the intelligent man of affairs will not beg off when the great invitation comes to him. He will say: "I have just come into possession of a piece of land, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and therefore I want to come to thy divine feast so that I may learn how to turn all I possess into the channels of real service and to make these things which thou hast given me help me find the way to the highest joy and blessedness of life."

HAVERFORD COLLEGE, Haverford, Pa.

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Rufus

M. Jones